The Environment or a Chaffed Ass?

A friend directed us to an interesting article in the guardian.co.uk Posted on February 26, 2009. It turns out that American’s Love for a soft tissue to wipe there buttocks with is worse for the environment than their love for driving gas guzzling Hummers.

According to Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk,”The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country’s love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public’s insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.”

She goes on to quote Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council”This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” he goes on to say, “Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin woodis a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.” Making toilet paper has a significant impact because of chemicals used in pulp manufacture and cutting down forests.”

Susan also points out that Paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark have identified luxury brands such as three-ply tissues or tissues infused with hand lotion as the fastest-growing market share in a highly competitive industry. Its latest television advertisements show a woman caressing tissue infused with hand lotion.

The New York Times reported a 40% rise in sales of luxury brands of toilet paper in 2008. Paper companies are anxious to keep those percentages up, even as the recession bites. And Reuters reported that Kimberly-Clark spent $25m in its third quarter on advertising to persuade Americans against trusting their bottoms to cheaper brands.

But Kimberly-Clark, which touts its green credentials on its website, rejects the idea that it is pushing destructive products on an unwitting American public.

Americans already consume vastly more paper than any other country — about three times more per person than the average European, and 100 times more than the average person in China.

Barely a third of the paper products sold in America are from recycled sources — most of it comes from virgin forests.

“I really do think it is overwhelmingly an American phenomenom,” said Hershkowitz. “People just don’t understand that softness equals ecological destruction.”